What about an idiots, pre-made, all windows 7 software etc loaded PC - literally plug in and start playing WoW option?

I'm in the UK and when I can stop my IT friends from ranting about how I/they should spend 14 weeks building my own PC they suggest Aria for pre-mades? I have fun listening to their screams sometimes by telling them I'm in PC world and about to buy a PC...

I can't speak to UK-specific builders, but I myself generally choose pre-built PCs these days. This is in no part due to technical unfamiliarity in the least -- I worked as a PC tech for several years and have built hundreds of machines, and I used to build all of my own computers every single time. Nowadays, though, I'm grown up and I have a bit more money to throw around, and my time is a bit more important to me since I work full time. I find that it's generally worth an extra hundred bucks or so to have the computer completely built, burn-in tested, OS installed, with guaranteed fully compatible parts so I don't have to go through all that mindless work myself. So, I think you're perfectly justified in your decision.

I'm in the US, but whenever we go through a custom builder like CyberPower we've had nothing but good experiences.

Levantine wrote:But that would mean I'd have to... like... talk to the uni geeks. That's like, social suicide (it's kinda scary how alike uni and high school are). I might ask around, if I'm ever anywhere near the IT department, which I probably won't be since the Education and Performing Arts faculties are at opposite ends to the IT one.

oh noes teh geeks they will get their geek cooties on you

much easier to talk to geeks on the internet forums amirite

Considering I'm in a completely different faculty to them and thus don't actually know any, yes, it actually is. I appreciate the snide humor though, especially from a moderator.

Levantine wrote:But that would mean I'd have to... like... talk to the uni geeks. That's like, social suicide (it's kinda scary how alike uni and high school are). :P I might ask around, if I'm ever anywhere near the IT department, which I probably won't be since the Education and Performing Arts faculties are at opposite ends to the IT one. :(

oh noes teh geeks they will get their geek cooties on you

much easier to talk to geeks on the internet forums amirite

Considering I'm in a completely different faculty to them and thus don't actually know any, yes, it actually is. I appreciate the snide humor though, especially from a moderator.

errr, I'm a bit unsure about where to find actual component values for stunn in the australian prison lands, so I'll just use newegg prices.

My personal opinion is to wait untill January Lev. CES2011 is gonna happen, and on the 9th, Intel will unleash the sandy bridge series. As it stands, the relative value of components is released for motherboards and CPU's.

The 2500k is said to be the best performance/buck with the best overclocking functionality. That will set you back 206 us Dollars.An Gigabyte P67A-UD4 will set you back about another 200 US dollars, while still offering all the real stuff you'll need, and maintaing some space for you to upgrade for SLI/Crossfire etc.4 giga Ram of the mushkin radioactive will set you back 115 US dollars, with a CAS timing of 6-8-6-24. These sticks have loads of overclocking potential, though considering your budged, you still have room for another 100$ to spend on your ram, meaining you can get the Dominator GT with similar timings, one speedstep higher though.

I'm unsure of how the AUS taxing system works, but in general you should be able to get these items within your budget.

Also keep in mind that WoW is as much CPU heavy as it is GPU. The new Sandy bridge processor will help you a lot more than you think . If you feel you're okay with the Mushkin Radioactive (I would be tbh, they're great) and don't want to fish out for DomGT's, treat yourself to a 40-60GB SSD. You know that loading lag when you log into dalaran, where you firstly see mailboxes, then character models, then NPC's etc ? No more of that. Also, keeping your OS on your SSD helps tons!

In general, as a good practice, I like to make sure that all the systems I suggest or buy/design have as much forward compatibilty as possible. Buying yourself into SB line now, will see you sorted for the next 3 years (I doubt they'll stop production on this line in under 3 years). You'll have ample space to get yourself a 2nd card for an SLI if thats you're kind of stuff, and you get enough slots for the new Sata6GB/s and USB3 IO poorts to keep you runnning for a while.

The only minor setback is the PCI-e config of your motherboard. Running one card, you get 1x16 speed. In two cards mode, you only get 2x8 though. Although I doubt we'll see a large enough video upgrade and game graphics update in the years to come, to make your 2x8 not powerfull enough, some people whine about the lack of 2x16 a lot. (generally, tards who don't realise they don't need 32Gbits/s of video transfer speed....)

All in all, I feel that this is going to be THE best setup for you. Also keep in mind that in matters of comparing performance, your i7 2500k will have the same performance as the i7 950-960, with less heat throughoutput, higher clock speeds, and more power when comparing clock-to-clock

You know that loading lag when you log into dalaran, where you firstly see mailboxes, then character models, then NPC's etc ? No more of that.

Sadly I think the new streaming client has screwed up the advantages of SSDs for WoW. Minor textures even in cities I frequent appear to only load in by downloading real-time when I'm nearby. It's annoying that there seems to be no way to convince my client that everything should be downloaded ahead of time and kept.

Still worth considering, but I don't plan on adopting SSDs until they get much cheaper. I have way too many games to run everything I'd want off one, let alone everything that would benefit greatly.

I got a 80gig SSD early this year for absurdly cheap, IIRC. OS, WoW and all the apps I use take up 60 gigs. I finally finished installing/verifying/consolidating my secondary storage space, which is a 4x2TB RAID5, which has all my media, secondary games and Steam, SC2, etc. At $79 a 2TB drive, it was a no-brainer, considering I was running out of space on what I had.

If all you're going to do is play WoW on your comp you really don't need that much space. If you need more storage, you could add a pair of 500 gig HDs for less than a hundred dollars.

(Anything 500gig or more I would put in a RAID1. Losing data sucks.)

A compromise would be to get a faster 10k RPM HD. A 150 gig WD VelociRaptor is $129.

Levantine wrote:I was dicking around and I found the GTX460 for a reasonable price, Yes no maybe-so?

http://www.hardocp.com/article/2010/12/ ... _1gb_sli/1I'd say yes Although, you should aim for the card with the best temperature/warranty. I know the 480's run hot as hell, but then MSI released their version which was 200% better card.A quick search reckomended Asus 460 card, but take my opinion with a grain of salt. If you're gonna run WC through it though, try and get one that doesn't void your warranty if you change the shroud. I know eVGA tends to be rather lax when you change something on the shroud and their warranty. Worst thing I've seen them accept as an RMA, was a 2 year old card, that a friend had used a wc block from a different card to cool, shortcircuiting the pcb, blowing the card up. eVGA said they'll take it in np (though they didn't really know all of the story )

Sarutankah wrote:I still use my old PC for wow - Q6600@3.4 and GTX280 undervolted and stock clocks...

almost 3 years that bitch has been chugging along. Only thing that I have changed was adding a solid state drive just for wow.

SSD is the single thing I would recommend to anyone - especially when servers are full from people returning to check stuff out.

There is no reason to get cutting edge stuff if you are playing games right now unless you have a huge monitor, even then older tech is more than fast enough in most games.

I'm waiting for a really world changing development... like Gran Turismo 5 on pc...

My reasoning is this. If I click on /played I see an obscene amount of time spent playing wow. Seeing as it is my main time expenditure I think it's fair to view the game in the best quality available. Of course you can play wow with a bad computer with settings on low, but the visual experience means a lot to me. Not only "what I need to be able to play".